


To Rehabilitate a Villain

by unnecessary_databass



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Post 508, Rebuilding a friendship, exhaustingly emotionally healthy, im sure next weeks episode will absolutely destroy all this but why not write it anyway, rehab for Villains, well sort of, yes i said lena's a villain but the whole thing is about rehab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21664375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unnecessary_databass/pseuds/unnecessary_databass
Summary: Healing comes in fits and starts, and progress is not linear.Sorry about the Kryptonite cannons, Lena's lab scrawl reads, and Kara smiles sadly.Maybe this was what all those rehabilitated villains went through.
Relationships: Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor
Comments: 39
Kudos: 246





	To Rehabilitate a Villain

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a therapist. If you're reading this and go 'whoa, that's not what should happen', you're probably right! Don't take this as therapy advice if your best friend turned evil! This is not a therapy session! This is fanfiction. 
> 
> The next episode will doubtless turn this all on its head, but for right now, I had an idea of what I'd like to see and here we are.

Healing comes in fits and starts, and progress is not linear.

Kara dreams of the ion cannons. Of their blast throwing her to the rocky mountain floor, of landing in a _floof_ of snow and her whole body tingling. The feeling fades, she flies back up. And then the cannons turn green, and there's a familiar feeling of dread as she holds her hands up in surrender.

Lena lets her live.

Kara wakes up gasping and sweating.

"So your best friend is a villain," Kara mumbles to herself, making hot chocolate in a large ceramic vase most people would use to hold flowers in. She heats it up with laser vision and doubles the chocolate and stirs it with just a little bit of superspeed and sits on the couch, hoping the near-boiling chocolate will warm her.

A warm stomach is not the same when her soul feels cold. She goes back to bed.

A note arrives in the mail for her the next morning.

 _Sorry about the Kryptonite cannons,_ Lena's lab scrawl reads, and Kara smiles sadly, because Lena's the kind of person that has different handwriting for different occasions, but her notes to Kara before have only ever been in her lab scrawl when she's distracted by six different things. Usually it's thank-you-letter script, maybe her prepared notes for meetings handwriting. _Automatic fortress defense system--took a minute to shut it down._ The tone is almost dry on the page. _I'm sure you understand._

Kara sends back a note just as short before she can stop herself. _Miles beyond their sticks and stones indeed. And I want you to know the hologram was genuine. The piggybacking virus was used without my knowledge or consent._

"What am I doing?" Kara whispers to herself as she forces her body to remain still, the sounds of the mailman taking the letter reaching her ears from three floors away. "Why am I letting someone take that note to a villain who nearly killed me last night?"

The mailman goes. Kara forces her ears to tune out and bites back the mental voice that's whispering _exactly_ all the reasons she'd always send a letter to Lena, villain or not. What's done is done.

Healing comes in fits and starts.

"Lena's an enemy now, Kara, I know you don't want to believe it, I don't either, but for right now, she's acting like an enemy and we need to treat her like one or she'll get away with something she'll regret forever."

Kara tears her gaze away from the distant L-Corp silhouette in the skyline to focus on Alex, who's looking concerned and torn up herself. Because what are you supposed to do when your best friend turns against you.

"Yeah," Kara sighs, and sees that her hands have made indents in the concrete balcony. "Okay."

"Okay?" Alex asks, slightly skeptical.

"Okay," Kara repeats. Something inside her dies just a little. She swivels her head to face Alex. "It's not like we haven't turned enemies to our side before."

Kara quirks her lips at the challenge, and something in Alex's tension breaks, just a little. Her shoulders relax minutely and her head tilts to the side, and there's a little bit of relief in her eyes. "Yeah," Alex agrees, her voice a sigh of relief. "Yeah, you're right." Then she tightens up again. "You know it won't be easy."

Kara gives her the saddest of smiles. "It's Lena. Nothing was ever easy with her. But it was always worth it."

"True," Alex says back, and leans on the balcony wall next to her sister for a moment. Their shoulders press together for a moment, a team again. "I'm sorry for not telling you about the piggyback, by the way. I was worried you'd disagree, and I'm still--" she takes a deep breath, lets it out shakily, "I'm still struggling with the decisions being on my shoulders."

"Hey," Kara says, wrapping an arm around her. "You're doing great."

"I'm really not," Alex says, her voice hollow.

"But you are getting better," Kara says, and this time, it's a little more genuine.

Alex nods thoughtfully. "I am." She glances at Kara. "Tell me when I can be better?"

Kara smiles a little more real this time. "Until the end."

Progress is not linear.

_Lena: Some days I wish I didn't know._

_Lena: So I could call Kara to talk about Supergirl._

_Lena: But this time it's both of you that's hurt me._

_Lena: Live long enough to see yourself become the villain, huh?_

_Kara: I don't know what to say except that I'm still sorry._

_Lena: I don't know what I expected._

_Kara: Are you drunk?_

_Lena: Maybe._

_Kara: Then when you reread this in the morning, I want both Drunk and Sober Lenas to know that she's always welcome back to the good side._

_Lena: See. You think you're still the good side._

_Kara: You attempted mind control, Lena. That's bad._

_Lena: You don't know the full story._

Kara bit her lip. She had assumed she didn't. But that didn't make up for the fact that Lena wasn't telling her the full story, right now. She hesitated for a moment before typing again.

_Kara: No, I don't. I will always welcome you home when you're ready to start healing and tell me the full story. But for now, I can't take responsibility for more than I've done. I hurt you and I'm sorry. I pushed you away. But there's nothing else for me to do except stop you from making worse mistakes._

_Lena: I don't know why I ever texted you in the first place. You're just another self-righteous Super._

Kara bit back a sob at that one. She'd cried more than enough tears for Lena today. She typed out a reply. _One who still loves you. Sleep well, Lena--_ Then deleted it.

Healing comes in fits and starts, and progress is not linear.

Lena goes radio silent for weeks. Kara's worried, beyond worried, that she's coming up with something else malicious that she really thinks is good. But it's worse than that. Worse like an empty seat at game night and no one to text on Tuesday night for a movie and no office to go to for lunch on Fridays. Worse like your best friend missing from your life, suddenly. Worse like no one to text pictures of cute dogs to that will appreciate them properly. Worse like.

Like worse.

"You seem upset, Kara Zor-El," Brainy informs her, sitting down next to her on the DEO training room staircase. She'd just beat Brainy six times in a row but only through using brute force, no finesse or technique to it. He propped his chin in his fingers, looking thoughtful. "Is it Lena?" He asked wisely. "Nia tells me matters of the heart cannot be rushed, especially when there is no closure."

Kara sighed, stretching out her legs and playing with her cape miserably. "No closure would be correct," she agreed.

"Perhaps this will help, then," Brainy said, his fingers steepled. "L-Corp still stands for a force for good at least four hundred years in the future. They made the cure for Mon-El's lead poisoning, remember?"

A small piece of Kara's weight lifted off her shoulders, then another. "You're right," she murmured in wonder.

"Of course I am," Brainy said, like it was obvious.

"You're only going to give me a four hundred year tease?" Kara asked him, amused, and Brainy bristled.

"I wouldn't have told you anything at all, for the sake of the timeline! But Mon-El already gave that away."

Kara's laugh echoed off the stone of the training basement.

Healing comes in fits and starts, and progress is not linear.

And then there was this tiny idea that was taking deep root in Kara that even though it's all going to be okay in the end, that doesn't mean she's not allowed to hurt in the present. Those two ideas both seemed right, but they didn't quite fit together in Kara's head. Kelly had a word for that. Academics did too. _Cognitive Dissonance._ It's when you hold fast to two conflicting ideas, and it made Kara's head hurt.

Right now cognitive dissonance and everything else all hurt like a bitch.

Kara was assigned a piece on Lena.

Kara, the journalist, had an appointment on Lena Luthor's schedule.

She couldn't breathe just thinking about it. Someone else had written about the fall from grace of Eve Tessmacher. Kara just couldn't write that one. They had done a fine job. But though that was a far bigger story, this little puff piece that was borderline advertorial had landed in her lap. It had been announced at the meeting, and assigned to Kara before anyone could say anything because of her previous work on Lena.

So now Kara was calling Lena's offices, and her secretary picked up, someone new, always someone new, and Kara asked for an appointment for CatCo, and there was the hum from the secretary adding her into the calendar for tomorrow morning, first thing. Kara held her breath, but there was no surprised exclamation, no _sorry, but you're blacklisted from Ms. Luthor's schedule and offices,_ no denial of her request. So now all that was left to do was hold her breath.

Lena was surprised to see her.

Which, frankly, surprised Kara.

When she met Lena, Lena was always on top of her schedule. Her secretary helped, but there didn't seem to be the same need for aid she had given to Cat once in Lena's professional life. Lena had to be absolutely on top of absolutely everything as she was rebranding. Now, perhaps things had calmed down enough she didn't need to be so alert about everything.

Or maybe she was spending far too much time in bunker labs, the more sinister part of Kara whispered. Then the more concerned part of her whispered the exact same thing as she took in the bags under Lena's eyes, pristinely covered with makeup. Lena looked flawless on the outside, but to the informed observer? Kara could see the wear on her.

Another cause for concern, no matter her angle.

"Someone else can come back this afternoon," she said to the floor, scuffing her feet gently as she stood. She looked Lena in the eye. "For your quote on L-Corp's new rollout." She made it clear that she was here for their civilian professional lives' business, and Lena's shoulders relaxed minutely. "If now isn't a good time."

Lena's eyes flitted to her secretary, who wasn't particularly paying attention to them at the moment but was clearly about to brief Ms. Luthor for her day. "Now is fine." She waved her hand at her secretary. "Come in after we're done." Her secretary nodded, and Lena opened the door for them murmuring to her secretary "Fake an emergency if she's not gone in twenty minutes."

 _Twenty minutes._ Kara shrugged mentally. Twenty minutes was more than plenty of time. More than she thought Lena would have afforded her. Thought it still stung a little that Lena knew she had superhearing now and would still say that in front of her.

Lena stood behind her desk, not offering Kara a seat, and for a moment, and Kara was reminded of one of the first times she met Lena, asking for a fight club address, when Lena was still full of inviting mystery and just enough subterfuge to be scary, but all hurt and vulnerability underneath. She was a kicked puppy in the gutter that had simultaneously grown up to be a ferocious fighter. Powerful and scared and--

And not so different than she was now, probably.

Lena sat gracefully, spun her chair around. "L-Corp's new product--" Kara fumbled hastily for her recorder, nearly dropped it, and used her superspeed to record Lena's first words on her notepad. Lena turned back around after ninety seconds to see Kara scribbling notes on her pad, still standing awkwardly, recorder held precariously between two fingers. "Oh, I should have offered you a seat. Please, Ms. Danvers, sit."

Kara felt a little cold rush go through her at Lena's addressing of her, that voice that had started so long ago now louder, the voice that says _just because it'll all be alright in the end doesn't mean this present part doesn't suck, doesn't mean you aren't allowed to act like it every now and again_. "Thank you," she murmured, sitting.

"Is that all you needed?" Lena asked, raising an eyebrow delicately, and oh, how Kara missed that eyebrow raise, that delicate dance that used to say something different. The one that used to make Kara feel comforted and excited and a fierce kind of happy all at once, and all at once, she's _angry._

Anger floods through her in a rush and Kara's been mad before, but she'd never quite experienced this particular version of helplessness before. She'd never understood the phrase _blood boiling_ before, but she feels things go fuzzy and a helpless kind of heat in her veins and something in her ears is buzzing and this, this is it. Blood-boiling rage. For Lena, for taking this away from her. For taking away the best friendship she ever had. For hurting her and hurting her and hurting her again, betraying her trust and blaming it all on Kara and taking away that comfort she used to have and giving her this hurt instead, this stiff _uncomfortability_.

That's what hurts the most. Not when Lena lashed out and not when Lena hurt her on purpose. Kara had been immature before, had been hurt and acted on that instead of her better self. She could forgive that happening, once, maybe twice. But that Lena had played the long con, that Lena had been vindictive and cruel, had let her worst impulses and passions rule her, over and over, that was worse. But the worst of it was looking where you used to see love and seeing nothing.

"Ms. Danvers?"

Kara stood abruptly. "Fuck. You," she seethed.

Lena's entire demeanor shifted. From something cool and in control to something in shock and taken aback. Her ears went back like a cat's and her mouth opened sneeringly, but Kara didn't give her the chance.

"I may have ruined something good with my mistakes," Kara hissed, "And that's on me. But I admitted to that. And you ran with my mistakes and you made those mistakes all that you saw. You were cruel and you lied to hurt me, not to protect anyone else, you claimed again and again you were no villain, and then you attacked me physically, and just because you hold reservations about killing me, I believed you could be saved." Kara stuffed her things in her purse and took one last disgusted look at Lena. "I had my part in this, I'll never deny that. But it took you being this cold and awful for me to realize that this absence of love can't be all my fault. Because even though I held back truths from you, I _was_ honest with you. And if you were being honest that we ever had a friendship, you'd have forgiven me the same way I was always so ready to forgive anything you ever did."

The blood had drained from Lena's face, but her jaw was set and steady. She stood up with a nearly imperceptible wobble and leaned forward on her desk. "Then _go,"_ she snarled back.

Kara straightened. "You won't see me again," she promised, and made for the door, then turned back. "Not unless you try something else stupid."

Lena's sniffles echoed in her ears as she rode down the elevator. As did her broken sob from a block away.

Not that it affected Kara.

For progress is not linear.

It took Lena less than a month to attempt something else stupid. It was just as bad as Myriad and this time Alex and Kara were united in their efforts to stop it, but Alex didn't lean towards the lethal option straightaway this time.

"You don't kill," she said wearily. "You've been over this many times. And I know you're right--we've had plenty of villains come back to us." She gave a weak, tired, hopeful smile. "Remember Julia?"

Kara did indeed remember Julia. "Proud of you," she whispered, and Alex gave a shrug.

"Go do your thing, Supergirl."

Kara remembered Julia, but now she'll always remember Lena like this, too. Lena, standing in the wreckage of her second worldwide-mind-control attempt, a bloody gash dripping down her temple, remote half-crushed in her hand, her stance lopsided from a sprained ankle, desperation and torment on her face. Lena, screaming more obscenities at the DEO agents in the dust, before catching sight of Kara and falling silent. Lena, allowing herself to be led away with that same expression she had when Maggie arrested her in front of Kara all those years ago.

And the pain in Lena's eyes is something that's branded into Kara now.

When the DEO agents were gone and all fortress defenses disarmed, Kara sat in the middle of the dust, back resting against the telephone-pole sized base of the satellite dish reaching upwards, and cried. Her sobs echoed in the mountain fortress, cold and more alone than she was before.

-Two Months Later-

Kara shouldered into her apartment, arms full of groceries. She dropped them on the counter and leaned against it, head hung heavy for a long minute before she remembered to go shut the door.

Life was kind of miserable these days.

Kara had gotten Lena's journals from the FBI and had been up late into the night reading them, whispering like a broken record, _Lena, Lena no._

Because the thing about getting into the head of a scientist who takes extensive notes, you know what they're thinking. Especially when you know them. And Lena's pain, Lena's journey, Kara could watch where the first twist happened in the fabric of her thinking. She could watch where the wrinkles were smoothed away by love and twisted again by its loss. She could watch as the fabric of Lena's thinking was crumpled and thrashed, nearly beyond repair.

It was, in short, devastating.

But at least she could understand what happened. What was going on in Lena's head. She'd understand why Lena wanted to read Lex's journals, if that hadn't been a lie.

Kara had been talking to Kelly a lot about these things. Kelly had helped.

Healing comes in fits and starts, and progress is not linear.

Some days Kara thought her progress was more like a loop-the-loop.

Her phone rang, and Kara picked it up warily. "Alex?"

"Hey, Kara, I think it's time."

Kara sighed heavily. "Should I be there?"

"I'd love to tell you no, but you're the only one fast enough if she's got something rigged."

"I'll meet your team there in twenty?"

"Thanks."

Lena's lab she'd spent the majority of her more villainous time in was spacious, clean, and surprisingly still a pleasant temperature. It made Kara think of her as just Lena, making crazy hours on whatever awesome invention she had going on next. That made her sad again.

"I don't know what we're expecting to find," Alex admitted, alien stun gun still out as they prowled through the lab, Alex's Beta Strike and Recon team in front of Alex but behind Kara. Kara walked through with a little less concern. If something were going to jump out and get them, it would have done it by now. "Maybe a big yellow notepad with 'My Evil Plan' written across the top?"

Kara huffed a laugh, the sound wrung out of her, and felt Alex smile. That joke was meant for her, though half the team chuckled, on medium-level alert. The DEO had done an initial, quick sweep, then FBI had gone through it. But it was the DEO's territory now, and if Lena had something special rigged to blow that discriminated in its guests, it'd be rigged for Kryptonian DNA. Neither Kara nor Alex had been excited about going through it. Kara reached the center of the lab before getting impatient and superspeeding through it in a gust of wind.

"There's nothing," she announced, and Alex sighed and straightened, holstering her gun. Her team straightened as well, and Alex waved her hand. "Comb the place again," she said. "I want no piece of concrete unturned. Call in our friends in CSI and local PD if there's something you want their help on. Break open the walls, peer in the joints of all the structures, and as soon as I'm done with it, someone call Brainy take apart her mainframe computer again. This'll take days, people, so get comfortable."

There was a general murmur as the agents unstrapped their more heavy protective gear and began to move around, pulling out other tools to begin their investigation while Kara and Alex moved to the now slightly-dusty main screen that took up half a wall. Alex glanced at Kara. "You okay?" she asked lowly.

"No," Kara said honestly, giving Alex a flat smile. "Let's do this." Between Brainy in their ears and the FBI's copious notes and Kara's general computer know-how (plus her _Lena_ know-how), they were able to navigate through the database in the computer fairly quickly. Project after project presented themselves before Kara's eyes, idea after idea discarded or half-finished. Partial designs for the suit Lena gave her, a new-and-improved Kryptonite shielding microfiber, innovations on Obsidian's contacts, some finished schematics and buckets full of code for an interface called Hope, a water purifier that was powerful enough to turn the oceans into something that was safe to drink that had a note across the top _For Flint and the others, when finished--can't make it safe or accessible yet, something's still wrong. Jack's research could help?_ It made Kara's heart hurt.

"That's dated…" Alex squinted. "Six weeks before Lex came to town."

"She dropped everything," Kara sighed. "To save the world from her brother."

"Maybe Brainy could take a hack at that one," Alex mumbled. "Finish it then find a way to distribute it."

 _I don't think she'd mind._ The thought came to Kara's mind, unbidden, and she didn't try to squash it down this time. Because here, she felt like she could feel the Lena that was her friend before all those mistakes. The Lena with bright eyes who Kara could make smile too big for her face, unrestrained and giddy when she built something that could fix something else. The Lena who laughed at her broken kitchen sink disposal and fixed it in five minutes with a wink and a flippant toss of the heavy wrench, the Lena whose eyes widened comically in apology when she missed catching the wrench and it took a tiny chip out of Kara's counter. The Lena who couldn’t quite believe Kara wasn't mad about the tiniest sliver out of the cheap countertop when she herself had chipped the corner off the island last week.

A fresh wave of missing that Lena washed over her, and then the familiar rage at the Lena she knew now for taking that away. Then a new urge, to go break her kitchen sink disposal again, just to be mean. She let it all flow through her with practiced deep breathing until she was just sad again, and a little numb, and maybe a little less sad because she was so tired of being sad about this.

Kara took a deep breath and focused on the screen again, where Alex was examining the schematics for Myriad hooking up to the Q waves Lena had stolen from Malefic, brow furrowed in concentration, and sighed again, exhausted. Then something caught her attention. "Hang on, Alex, what's that note?" Alex zoomed in. In a scan of Lena's handwritten notes Kara had already seen before, a post-it in bright green was taped haphazardly to the side of them.

_Do No Harm._

It was underlined twice.

Kara had seen it in Lena's handwriting before, but never on a post-it. The post-it was crumped, a little torn in the corner, like it had been other places. Kara grabbed the tablet Alex was using to control the monitor and zoomed through it, scanning desperately, and--there. There the post-it was again, in different project notes. And then another. And then another. And then a different note, on an index card, taped to a bulletin board, then other notes, then fifteen other post-its and index cards and scraps of paper, _Do No Harm_ written over and over and over, in different languages, in different pens and markers and handwritings that were all hers, all part of the multi-faceted cognitively dissonant complexity that was Lena Luthor.

"Oh, Lena," Kara whispered. "You stupid, idiot genius."

Kara visited her as Kara Zor-El, old sweater and jeans and no glasses.

The journal she had started when she first met Lena was clutched to her chest like she was a high school freshman, nervous and simultaneously angry that she was nervous.

Lena still had her eyes closed at her approach. She was sitting on the bed, meditating quietly, ponytail not quite pristine but neat, dressed in a spotless gray DEO t shirt and sweats, and Kara never thought she'd see Lena looking like this. She was barefoot. Something about that made Kara uncomfortable. The vulnerability of it all. They'd given Mon-El shoes, after all. And he was a superpowered alien. Lena'd only ever knocked a couple people out. And, y'know, attempted literal world domination. Maybe barefoot was okay.

"She returns," Lena said in a lazy drawl, but there was a smile in her voice, nothing sinister. She opened her eyes and smiled softly at Kara, just like old times. "Kara Zor-El." She tilted her head to the side, and _there_ was something a little cold, a little _the way she usually speaks to Lillian._ "It _is_ Kara Zor-El today, isn't it? Because there's no glasses, but no cape? You told me that once."

"Yes," Kara said quietly, tightening her grip on that journal. "Hello, Lena."

"Hello," Lena said, just as quiet, something almost soft in her voice. Her eyes flickered to the book in Kara's arms. "What've you brought me?"

Kara glanced down as she took a deep breath. "Your favorite kind of book." She quirked an eyebrow. "Someone else's private thoughts."

Lena gave her a half-smirk, the eye-rolling kind that used to come with late night donuts and _well, I am human_ s. The kind that used to make Kara giggle. The kind that now sent a wave of loneliness through Kara because she missed those mannerisms more than she could say. "For my very own?"

"I'm tempted to say on loan," Kara said, responding to her playfulness automatically, before sobering herself because there was still a wall of glass between her and Lena, still harsh florescent lighting and stark settings reminding her that Lena was one of the DEO's very few long-term prisoners. Kept away in the desert facility with all the other long-term inmates, she spent her days watching a rabid alien half-dog slobber up his cell while whispering maliciously about death to the infidels, listening to the depraved rantings of that gross woman that wanted to marry Kara's cousin, and keeping the company of something tentacled that wasn't technically a prisoner because it found its way back every time they tried to release it but seemed to like the tank they'd provided it.

"You can keep it," Kara amended softly. "Thought it might brighten this place for you."

Lena's jaw clenched. "Still high and mighty and taking care of me?"

"I don't know if high and mighty is what you'll think of me after reading this," Kara sighed, and Lena frowned.

"You're giving me _your_ journal?"

"One of them," Kara said, opening the hatch on the ground used for meals and sliding it through. Lena looked at it, an unreadable expression on her face. "This is the one I started when I met you."

"It's about me?"

"You're in it. You'll see."

Lena stood slowly, bent to pick it up, let the pages flip through under still-nimble and strong fingers. Kara watched her silently. Lena looked back up. "Why are you giving this to me?"

"I've been reading all of yours, whether you knew it or not. It's only fair. And because I want you to understand."

"Understand what?"

"What was real and what wasn't," Kara said. "And that you were an idiot." Lena frowned. "We cleaned out your lab yesterday. I saw your _Do No Harm._ You've written it so many times and in so many different ways it's tattooed on your soul, Lena, but in your quest to have the world do no harm, all you did was harm me and everyone in your way. Physical pain isn't the only way to harm someone. Just because you didn't kill me and stopped just short of real damage when the choice was in front of you doesn't mean you didn't wreak havoc in so many other places."

Lena's face was just on the stricken side of blank. Kara examined her for a long moment.

"You can call for me if you have any questions. I'll leave you to your reading."

_William Dey has sent you a message!_

Kara frowned at the notification on her computer screen, then up at William, who was studiously looking at his own computer screen fifteen feet away. Kara rolled her eyes and opened the CatCo chat.

_Were you going to write a piece on that Supergirl fire save from this morning? I heard she's your territory._

Kara narrowed her eyes at William, who was still being studious, before typing back somewhat irritably. _It's too small to be more than a paragraph and a half._

_William: I heard it was arson. I'd like to dig and I thought she'd make a good contributing source._

Kara glanced up at him again, and this time he looked back at her, quirking his face like he did. _I hadn't heard that._

_William: Do you want it? She's historically been your source and I don't even think I could get her to talk to me._

Kara bit her lip, tapping her pencil now. She was so tired of lying, and 'interviewing' Supergirl these days didn't make her feel anywhere near as good as it used to. In fact, it was starting to make her feel kind of ill, lying on paper, even if it wasn't technically lying.

_Kara: haven't you worked with her too? I was there._

_William: yes. I don't want to step on your toes, though._

_Kara: …that's very considerate. But you saw this was arson. She might appreciate having a relationship with more than one reporter in town._

_William: Are you sure?? I don't want to take this from you._

_Kara: I'm sure. She's in plenty of news._

William sent back so many praise and heart eyes emojis in thanks that Kara stifled a laugh. William looked up and smiled, and for the first time, Kara wondered if she could build a friendship with him that was a little more lighthearted, a little more genuine.

Kara's cell lit up with the DEO side of it (Winn had long ago installed some kind of two-sim-card deal so she only had one phone but two separate numbers), and she answered to hear William Dey. She flew over to meet him, landing on the CatCo balcony to see him, surprised and lowering his phone.

"Supergirl," he said, smiling. "I wasn't expecting you to get here so fast, but I guess they don't call you Supergirl for nothing."

Kara gave him a dim smile. "You wanted to ask me some questions?"

William ran her through the arson case and asked for her observations and statements, before he put away his notepad and firmly turned off his recorder, sliding them both out of reach. "I also just wanted to, um, check on you."

Kara's eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You wanted to check on me?"

William smiled wryly. "You know I have some unfortunate experience in friends disappointing me, and your friendship with Lena Luthor is well-documented. You were there for me and helped me when Russell was looking evil, before he died, and I appreciate it more than I can say." He leaned forward, hesitated, then put his hand over hers in a gesture of support, giving her a small smile. "I'm sure you have all the support you need, but I just wanted to say, I guess, that I can see how horrible this might be for you, and that I'm sorry this is happening."

Kara gave him a small smile in return, remembering abruptly how William had approached her in the stairwell the day after Lena had been arrested when it all went down, asking if she was okay. How she had allowed herself to hug him for a short minute, crying just a little, and William whispered _I understand, believe me. You know I do,_ and sent her a text that night with a code for a free Uber Eats delivery from wherever she wanted. The way he had given her space and been supportive of whatever she wanted to write for past few months, the way he'd been a good guy again like he'd promised.

Yeah. She had a friend in him. It felt good to have another friend again.

It took Lena five days to call for her, and Kara was kind of surprised she did at all.

"You wanted to talk?" Kara asked, and Lena nodded, her mouth closed but twisting thoughtfully.

Kara waited. Finally, Lena held up the journal. "This is all true?"

"Every word," Kara said softly.

"Then how are we here?" Lena breathed, looking desperate, and Kara felt an unspeakable sadness come over her again. "How am I in a cell with all my mistakes and you're out there with the world on your shoulders with all yours?"

"Because I admitted my mistakes," Kara said quietly. "And while I hurt you, and I make mistakes all the time, I work hard to make them up and I do see them as mistakes. I take feedback and I hear the people when they're upset with me. You, though, you're so damn smart it circled back around to stupidity and you're so damn compassionate you circled to cruelty."

"What does that even _mean?_ " Lena demanded, half-sobbing. "What does that mean?"

Kara took a deep breath. She'd had a lot of time to think about this, and she was a lot calmer than she used to be. "Think about it like this, then. There's this old paradox they bring up a lot when you study the Nazi's. When you force tolerance, you deny intolerant people of who they are."

"But the intolerant, they're wrong--" Lena tried.

Kara cut her off. "But if you force their tolerance, _you're_ being intolerant."

That gave Lena pause. She hesitated. "There's a stupid obvious solution somewhere in there," she said wryly.

"Yeah, and smart social scientists have figured it out," Kara agreed. "I read about it, but I forget the solution. That's not the point. The point is, things are a circle," she said, eyeing Lena, who was looking thoughtful but conflicted. "The political spectrum is too, when you go too far to the left you end up on the right and too far to the right you end up on the left. Democracy edges into socialism, goes into communism, ends up at totalitarianism and then autocracy. You did that. You went too far and ended up where you didn't want to be, and now you're here. _In a cell_ ," Kara emphasized.

And all her compassion and sorrow for Lena didn't stop her from seeing the truth now. "And you stupid idiot," Kara whispered, looking at Lena locked away in that cell, "You stupid idiot, all you did was harm me and everyone in your way all while attempting to stop the world from doing harm to each other. You didn't accept the apologies and the sorrow and the regret and the help from those that had wronged you. You didn't have to have all the enemies you did."

Lena tilted her head. "Kind of hard to impose your will, even if it is for the greater good."

"I think Kelly and Alex are discovering that as they begin parenthood," Kara agreed wryly. And then something incredible happened. Lena smiled. And then she cried.

Healing comes in fits and starts, and progress is not linear.

-Ten Months Later-

Kara didn't really know how people had ideas for TV shows, but Nia had tossed out the idea of a Superfriends show last week, and now it was all she could think about.

She punched at the Unbreakable Punching Bag Brainy had designed for her, methodically, working on her boxing technique for half an hour before moving to some Sara Lance-style combat on those poles that have random sticks coming out of them. Whatever they're called. Nia's voice echoed in her head.

"Y'know, but, hang on, _hang on, dude,_ what about a superhero TV show? They're all the rage, right? Like, they're already making comic books about you, Kara, what if they made a TV show someday?"

Kara had chuckled it off. She had no idea how they'd do the special effects without filming her herself, but that didn’t seem to be her problem. But now she was framing it idly in her head. There could be an episode per villain, that format would probably work pretty well. Each episode would end with something family centric, only if they were making it long after she was gone and her double identity finally revealed. Her and Alex on the couch, perhaps. Laughing with Winn and James at Game Night, before they left. Playing with Alex and Kelly's daughter, now she was here. Talking with Lena--

An imaginary show creator voice cut across her head. _"It really focuses on their short and surprising golden years, when they were friends before enemies, a classic Super-Luthor story--"_

Kara cut off that thought and nearly lasered a hole in the concrete at the idea of it.

She sat down heavily, leaning back against the pole, breathing heavily. This shit still hurt like a bitch, even with the numbing agent of time. She sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes, focusing on breathing. She had a lot of years left on this earth. She was going to have to do _something._ Something had to give. It shouldn’t still hurt like this after a whole year.

Kara took a deep breath and forced herself to believe it was better. She was so good it just might have been true.

A letter had arrived for Kara at the DEO when she went upstairs to cool off after nearly ruining the training room at the thought of a fictional TV show.

A jolt went through Kara's stomach at the sight of the familiar handwriting. It was in Lena's best script. _Ms. Zor-El, Command Center of the Department of Extranormal Operations,_ was written on the cover.

Kara opened it with shaking hands and a grim look from Alex, climbing the stairs to shut herself in an empty conference room and staring at it blindly until the words started to look like words.

_Kara,_

_Can you believe I didn't know how to address this letter? Kara looked unprofessional for your workplace and Supergirl sounds too cold on my tongue after what I've done. I thought somewhere in between but it ended up looking even more ridiculous. My apologies._

_The multiple court-ordered therapists have worked wonders on me. I'll spare you the largest part of the painful healing process, but I've finally gotten the help I've needed without realizing I needed it for so long. I've seen the error of my ways, to put it shortly. Write me back and I'll tell you everything you want to know. Something tells me they don't quite know what therapist to send you._

_I'm writing to say I'm sorry for not doing this in person, but I know you're busy and I don't want you to feel like you have to see me out of duty or something. Because it'll sort of be your last chance, at least for a while._

_I'm going off-world, you see. I'm sure they've been keeping you appraised of the developments, but between the Legion of Heroes offering to help rehabilitate me for all the help I've given them in the past and Argo's sincere gratitude for the Harun-El, I've made some friends, funnily enough. Despite everything else I've done. And with their outstanding track record, I think they'll be able to help me be, well, better, at least._

_I'll be leaving tomorrow for Argo for a few months to make them some more Harun-El--closely supervised community service, if you will. The Legion will pick me up from there and then, well, I don't know what will happen. More closely supervised community service, but for how long, I don't know. They promise I'll have a way to send letters, if that's what I want. But only letters._

_I also wanted to say I'm sorry. For the destruction. For the lives ruined. For thinking I knew better than everyone else in all the worlds and acting just like my brother. For being cold and cruel and turning your home against you and giving you physical damage. I'll spend a lifetime healing my mind from the poisons I've let run through it, and I expect you'll spend a lifetime healing from the damage I did you. I wanted to say this in person but also thought you deserved to have it in writing, to look back on. Your journal is still in my cell in the desert facility, if you'd like it back. I can't take anything with me._

_I'll spend a lifetime trying to be better, the right way. I think this way, I'm off to a good start, and though Legionnaire work is risky (even though I'm not a full Legionnaire--no ring and no flight and I'm sure they'll keep me away from the wonders of the 31st century), if I die, it'll be helping the world. Or at least a version of it._

_I hope, not for me, but for your own heart, you find a measure of forgiveness for me. But if hating me is what you need, I deserve it. And I take it gladly._

_Please enjoy your life, Kara. You more than anyone deserve it. Stay safe, stay good. You know better than anyone how to. May our paths cross again one day under better circumstances. If there's ever anything I can do for you, anything at all, just call. I'm sure you'll find a way._

Lena had already left. Kara could fly to Argo if she wanted. Malefic was still on Mars with J'onn's spaceship, but she was pretty sure she could find another.

Kara sank back in her chair, thinking. It was best to leave Lena be, for now. Every single sentence of Lena's letter was running circles through her head.

Yes. It was best to leave her be, for now.

Healing comes in fits and starts.

When Kara picked up her journal from the desert facility a month later, it was stuffed full of extra paper. Lena had obtained a stack of post-its and index cards and had written a reply to every single entry. Her words were full of wonder, of awe that Kara thought of her this way, of regret for the way she had flown off the rails to villainy. Of thoughtful self-reflection and pondering of who the world saw her as. Who _Kara_ saw her as.

Kara spent another month wrapped up in Lena's replies, in her comments, in her prep-for-meetings handwriting, in her _god Kara I'm so sorry I let you down in so many violent ways_ scribble of the very first page of the journal. In the _honesty_ of her words on the final dozen pages that Kara had left blank. It was clear one of her therapists had asked her to write why she did the things she did, and Lena had dove back into her own head, asked herself why she had been attached to Do No Harm and how she had gotten it so wrong. Lena had been shown the statistics and the facts of the damages she had done and was so utterly horrified at herself. It was pages of self-loathing, plain printer sheets filled and stuffed in after the journal ran out, dozens of pages of hatred before she climbed back out of the spiral and asked how she could do better. And committed to it.

It wasn't devastating the way her first journals were. It wasn’t inspiring, exactly. It was… fascinating. Enveloping. Absorbing and engaging and something that made Kara _think_ and see bits of her best friend again.

Maybe this was what all those rehabilitated villains went through.

Another invitation came in the mail. More specifically, a hologram of her mother, asking her to be on Krypton for a few days for a ceremony celebrating the Harun-El and the now-steady existence of Argo for many years to come.

"We'd love to have you present, Kara," her mother said, and Kara felt a little residual bitterness from her mother shipping her off to live with another people while she survived, in the end. For twenty-four years in space and darkness and loneliness and silence while her mother lived on Argo. "I know you aren't a part of the community the way you should have been, but I know Lena would love to see you, and--"

"You talk with Lena?" Kara asked her abruptly, and her mother's hologram paused.

"Yes," she said slowly. "I've been one of the ones supervising her work most closely." Well, that wasn't concerning _at all._

"And you talk about me," Kara said slowly, more a statement than a question. Her mother paused.

"Yes. She's told me everything she's done to you. And how sorry she is, and how she's trying to make amends. And where you two are now." Her mother tilted her head. "Though I'd love to hear it from you."

Kara sighed. "Does she talk about anything other than how her epic screwups were Luthor-level Villainy?"

"She talks about how she loves you," her mother said softly. "She's a lot more open than the woman I met a few years ago. She's never had a closer friend, and she misses you horribly, even though she doesn't feel close to you the way you once were. And then she goes back to science. Science and science and science until it gets theoretical and then philosophical, and before I know it we're back at you."

Kara chewed her lip. "Things are busy here," she said, half-dismissively. "One of our resident heroes left and the other is pretty busy with a new way of helping people."

"Lena tells me you have a few new heroes to fill in for them." _Damn her._ Kara sighed, and her mother tilted her head. "Think about it, darling. You don't have to see Lena if you don't want to. But you won't get another chance to see her for who knows how long after she leaves. And we'd love to have you regardless if she was here or not."

Kara went to Argo.

As soon as she arrived there was a short ceremony and gathering with speeches Kara couldn't focus on but smiled politely and convincingly through, her mother's public welcoming of her to cheers for their lost daughter, the crowd not knowing who she was on Earth, and she didn't know how to feel about that.

Kara took a long walk through the same greenhouse she did last time with Mon-El, and thought of him. How he'd reformed with the Legion. Come back so different. So grown up. Not exactly regretful for who he was, but sort of. Lena already had that part down, didn't she?

Kara hadn't seen Lena yet. She thought she saw a glimpse of dark hair in the crowd, but it had slipped away when someone tugged on her elbow. And Kara had run away earlier. She was still in her Supergirl suit and starting to feel kind of silly about it. This one was a little more shiny than her last one and it felt ostentatious here when she had no powers.

Kara headed back to her mother's house, reveling in the fresh air and the way she panted slightly when going up the hill. She let herself in and slipped into her old childhood room. The bed was made neatly. She rustled through the oddly-full closet to find one of the dresses she had worn last time, letting the suit fade away into glasses she set carefully on the bedside table beside the Legion ring she had brought for protection to tug it on. She heard the front door open and walked out to greet her mother, shaking her hair out.

"Mom, I'm sorry I left early, it was a long flight--"

It wasn't her mother at the door. Lena stood there frozen, staring, in a dress similar to hers, long hair longer than Kara remembered and mouth slightly open. "Kara," she breathed.

The world faded away into imaginary thud-thud-thuds for a breathtaking moment, Lena's imaginary pulse in her hears, Kara so used to hearing it from a time long ago. Then she realized it was _her_ heartbeat in her ears.

"I didn't realize you were staying here," Kara said dumbly, and Lena shrugged self-consciously.

"Alura is one of the few with extra room. I hope that's not weird."

"It's incredibly weird," Kara said without meaning to, and Lena flinched. Kara softened. "But it's okay."

Lena eyed her carefully. "You're sure?"

"It's weird because I thought my mom was dead for so long and you met her for five minutes that one time a few years ago." Kara tilted her head, realizing. "And it was your clothes in the closet."

"Oh no," Lena said, finally moving inside and closing the door behind her. "Did I take your room?"

"I've only lived here for like a week since I was twelve, Lena, it's fine. My mother has more rooms, I'm sure we can figure something out." Lena nodded, twisting her fingers together like she was still unsure before moving abruptly towards the kitchen.

"Are you hungry?" Lena asked, pulling open cabinets and reaching for things with an ease.

"You're different," Kara said quietly, following her slowly.

Lena set down two glasses on the countertop, slowly. She looked up at Kara, biting her lip, nothing flirtatious about it. "Yes," she said simply. "I am." She hesitated. "And still sorry."

"I know," Kara said. "Do you want to talk about it later? That was a kind of long spaceship ride, they gave you the fast one and me the slow one."

A small smile quirked at Lena's lips before she shut it down. "Of course," she said, her fingers fluttering. "Can I make you something to eat?" She turned around, moving around the kitchen more. "To drink?"

"Whatever your specialty is," Kara said, sitting down. "I'll trust you." Lena's whole body stuttered to a halt for just a moment, then kept going. Kara smiled. It seemed the Lena she had most recently gotten to know was the honest one. The Lena who had finally gotten the help she needed.

Kara's mother found them eating together, still a cautious distance apart physically, engaging in some only mildly painful small talk about what the Superfriends had been up to and the happenings around Argo.

"I see Lena's made you her specialty," Alura said, moving towards Kara immediately to wrap her up in another hug as Kara stood to greet her. She held on tight, rocking Kara from side to side for a moment. "Oh, I missed hugging you," Alura said, and over Alura's shoulder Kara caught Lena look down at her plate, and could read the look on her face clear as day. Lena missed hugging her too. "Let me get changed and I'll sit with you two. I hope the ceremony wasn't too painful?"

"It was fine," Kara soothed. "No idea what anyone said, but it was fine." Lena snorted in laughter abruptly, and Kara and Alura both glanced over to see her turning red.

"My apologies," she said, sobering instantly.

Alura smiled and slipped back to change. "You know," Kara said thoughtfully after a moment, sitting back down, "You're allowed to laugh at my jokes."

Lena looked up at her, something vulnerable in her eyes, something unsure. "You're sure?" she asked quietly.

Kara took a deep breath and sighed it out, examining the ceiling. "Not quite sure," she admitted. "But no one laughs enough on this planet, and it's especially bad that no one gets my humor here. So for now, yes." Lena was still looking unsure. "I'll tell you if I want you to stop," Kara said, and she relaxed minutely. "Promise."

Lena smiled, still tentative, and Kara felt like groaning. This wasn't exactly harder than she thought, but it still sucked in plenty of ways.

They went to see Lena's lab the next morning. It was her father's lab, and Kara could see instantly that Lena had taken great pains to keep it exactly as it was. Kara knew her mother had told her who it used to belong to and Lena had gone exponentially out of her way to respect that.

A messenger came to get Alura with some council business leaving Lena and Kara alone.

Kara sat down on a stool while Lena continued to move around the room tidying things up quietly. "I'm sorry it's such a mess, I promise it usually looks better than this, I take better care of it than this--"

"Mon-El and I left it a mess when we blew through here a few years ago, don't worry about it. My father was far messier than you, and I've seen you at your messiest." Lena stiffened for a moment. She took a deep breath and relaxed. "I didn't mean it like that," Kara said quietly. "I meant it as someone who was your best friend." She hesitated, glancing at Lena shyly. "That's what I regret the most, you know. That I lost you. That instead of that easy warmth we had, there's this stiff awkward coldness. Even when the cold went away, we're not the same, and that's what sucks the most." She blinked. "I was talking about the lab clutter messy, sorry, not your, you know, villainess messy." she winced. "Though I wasn't wrong."

Lena very deliberately stood up straight and pulled another stool over towards Kara, sat down facing her. "No, you weren't. I wanted to talk to you about that. About it all."

"I know," Kara said quietly.

"Only if you're willing," Lena continued, and Kara shrugged.

"Seems like a big topic before the big ceremony honoring you in an hour."

"Later," Lena agreed, nodding. "And they're not honoring me."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "They're celebrating the thing you gave them."

Lena huffed. "Don't--" She snapped her mouth shut. "Pedantic points," she said, even more softly than she had been speaking. "Can we just call it a celebration of life and not say whose?"

"Okay," Kara said. _Lena Luthor, saving a full-on planet._ "I'm not telling you who or what you are anymore."

Lena winced. "I'm sorry for saying that too."

Kara shrugged again. She was feeling a calm sort of distance from the situation, like everything was so much more vivid on earth, where Lena was far away and she could imagine someone unhinged when the real thing was right here, and different and calmer and so obviously trying, trying so hard it was painful. "I did tell you a lot of things I had no right to."

"You might have," Lena agreed slowly. "But they did come from a place of love."

What do you say to someone who you loved so fiercely and violently for so long that when it all fell apart you felt lost without them and now they're here, calm and steadier than anything they ever used to be for you? What do you say when you feel lost again because you miss the feeling of loving them and they might be offering that chance once more, but better this time? What do you say when you know your time is limited and you don't know when your next chance will be after this day?

Kara pulled herself out of the confusing whirlpool of todays and tomorrows and yesterdays.

"Come on," she said, standing. "Show me how you made the Harun-el and then let's go to a party."

"Just like old times?" Lena said tentatively, standing as well, and Kara felt herself smile, maybe the first real smile since arriving on Argo.

"Just like the good old times," she nodded.

The party was lovely. It was tame. Kara didn't mind. She could use some tameness in her life.

Naturally, she tripped over a rock and twisted her ankle on the way back afterwards.

Lena, walking by her side, laughed loudly and unabashedly for a long moment before she caught herself, looking horrified. She clapped a hand over her mouth. "I'm so sorry," she gasped. "I didn't mean to laugh at your pain, I, I--"

"Lena," Kara said, half-chuckling and half-grimacing at the pain as she attempted to put her weight on it, "It's hilarious when someone trips if they're not seriously injured. You weren't laughing at my pain."

"And you're not seriously injured?" Lena fretted, eyes on Kara's ankle.

"Lena, for fuck's sake," Kara hissed, exhausted beyond belief of this new, overly emotionally healthy and tentative Lena, "Stop trying so hard to say the right thing all the time and get over here and take half my weight while I don't have my damn superstrength on this Rao-forsaken rock."

Lena gulped and did as she was told. She slid her arm around Kara's waist, pulling Kara's arm over her shoulder, sliding in warmly and solidly to Kara's side. Her familiar warmth rushed like a wave over Kara, who remembered what it was like to be Lena's friend all at once. The familiar ache in her chest stabbed anew, and she quashed it viciously and successfully. Lena was right here and ready to make up for everything she'd done. If they wanted to make this work, they could. At least in this fantasy land free of consequences that was Argo. At least for now. At least while Lena was so obviously doing her best to atone for her sins.

They limped home while Kara's existential worry swirled away in the face of the pain.

"Holy fuck," she mumbled as Lena helped her to the couch. "Being human sucks. I'd forgotten."

"Ice," Lena said definitively. "You need ice." She made a bag of it (an Argo version of a bag of ice, whatever) and approached Kara, who had sat down on the couch and propped her ankle on the coffee table. She examined Kara for a moment before nodding to herself, and then sat down, carefully lifted Kara's leg by the calf, and set it down gently in her lap instead, wrapping the ice around the entire ankle. Kara hissed as the cold hit before leaning back into the couch.

"Is this okay?" Lena asked quietly. "Are we here yet?"

"We are now," Kara said, and Lena chuckled at her dry tone. "Sorry for uh, snapping at you back there."

"No," Lena said, contemplative. "You were right." She glanced at Kara wryly. "I'd fallen into the trap of the perils of political correctness, of saying the right thing being more important than _doing_ the right thing. I needed the wake-up call."

"You're still doing the right thing plenty," Kara said, adjusting her leg carefully, focus on her ankle in Lena's lap. "I saw how hard you worked on the Harun-El and keeping my father's workshop as it was, even though it was undoubtedly a major inconvenience for you. I--what? What'd I say?"

Two tears were making twin tracks down Lena's cheeks. She shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut. "It's just, they're so nice here, but I don't always feel like they're all _real,_ you know? And to hear someone _real_ say that I'm doing the right thing and they see me trying, it's just, it means a lot, coming from you. Sorry."

"Well, don't apologize," Kara said, a tiny bit bewildered, but part of her understood. No. She understood completely.

"Right, sor--" Lena cut herself off, and Kara grinned. Lena rolled her eyes, still crying slightly, and Kara was forcibly slammed back in time to when Lena cried in her arms on the CatCo balcony, telling Lena she was a beautiful soul. That had been not the first nor the last time she'd forgiven Lena for keeping dangerous secrets from her. Because she understood Lena.

Did she still?

Kara studied her carefully, thought of the pages upon pages she'd read, shared pieces of with Alex, summarized for Nia and let Brainy look at bits of. The way they had each offered their own analyses of these private offerings. The way they had all come to the same conclusions. Misguided, horrific actions. Sincere, appalled at herself, deeply remorseful, and fully in control and careful, so so careful. It wasn't Kara making a blindly loving decision. It was a lot of people that once loved Lena and wanted to again, realizing their friend had gone off the rails and made a lot of mistakes that hurt people, and now knew exactly where she went wrong.

Some people did hard drugs. Others turned to mind control. Kara had long since accepted she didn't have a normal life.

Lena sniffled, jolting Kara back to the present, and Kara saw Lena had pulled herself back together. "My therapist agrees I need to work on saying sorry with my actions and not my words. Not over the little things."

"Smart therapist," Kara commented. "How many do you have?"

Lena rolled her eyes. "No making fun of me."

Kara raised a hand, mock serious. "Scouts' honor."

"…Four."

Kara burst out laughing, throwing her head back, and Lena smiled, watching her. Kara realized all at once this might be exactly a picture of how they used to hang out. That sobered her up. "What are they for?" Kara asked, genuinely curious. "I thought most people had one, if that."

"Trauma, rehabilitation, the relationship one with Eve, and the psychiatrist."

"You on anything?"

"Not anymore. They couldn’t find a good combo and I was receptive enough on my own, didn't want the drugs anyway. I don't exactly trust things in my system."

Kara nodded. "How's it going with Eve?"

Lena sighed heavily. "Not very well. We've made a lot of progress, but I don't think we'll ever reach a friendship. We both betrayed each other, and I keep seeing Hope when I look at her, then I remember it's not, and then I remember that I'm the one who took away her free will in the first place and feel awful. It's a slap in the face to both of us. She hates me, for good reason, and I can't trust anything she says. So." Kara remembered abruptly that the woman caring for her so carefully now was someone who had taken away the free will of another human being--no matter how awful that human being.

"Maybe some distance will do the two of you good?" Kara tried, and Lena smiled thinly.

"She's moving away, and I'm leaving the millennium. I think we've set her up well enough to go succeed somewhere else. She's an accomplished and tenacious woman, and Leviathan is defeated, thanks to you. She'll do well now, away from all her traumas, I think." Lena took a deep breath. "I'm still working on atoning for all the horrible and awful things I did there. I think self-forgiveness is something I don't get to begin to work on until I know she's safe and well and healing somewhere far away from all the insanity of National City and the Luthors."

Kara watched her quietly. "You're trying very hard," she said after a minute.

"Yes," Lena admitted. "I am. And I'm still waiting for a good chance to say sorry to you, properly, but I don't think it will ever come." Kara raised an eyebrow. "So I'm just going to take it." Lena leaned forward. "I cannot express to you enough how incredibly sorry I am for all the pain I caused you. Not just with Myriad, not just screaming at you in the fortress and letting ion cannons have a go at you. But for lying to you for months when I found out the truth of your identity, for not trusting your intentions when you were always so good to me, for not listening to you and for intentionally hurting you instead. For doing my best to destroy you emotionally and for using you until I got to that point. I'm so _sorry,_ Kara, that even after knowing all you'd been through, I thought that any circumstance justified knowingly giving you more pain to cope with. I'm sorry I ruined our friendship when I could have saved it and I'm sorry I didn't listen. I'll spend my life making it up to you if that's what you want. Or I'll disappear if that's what you want. But I want you to know, above all else, I see what you were saying that whole time now, and I know that I can be better."

Lena straightened, looking Kara dead in the eye. "I will be better. And the horrors I caused, I'll do everything I can to clean those up too. I want to leave this world better than I found it, and I want others to agree with my methods as I do it. Whatever it takes."

Kara nodded. There was nothing else to say.

Healing, you see, comes in fits and starts.

"Hey," Kara said, lying down on the couch, a pillow over her head because _sunlight is bright sometimes when you don't have superstrength, okay,_ "Can you get that drink for me?"

"What, this one?" Lena stood, walking over to pick up the drink a foot from Kara's outstretched hand, voice teasing. "Feeling a little pathetic when your human-strength level ankle is twisted, aren't you?"

"You _said_ you'd do anything for me," Kara pointed out, voice half a whine as she pulled her head out from under the pillow.

Lena went a little still, then sat down on the corner of the coffee table. "So you read everything, huh? Everything in the journal I gave you back?"

"Uh huh," Kara said, putting the pillow under head and turning to look at Lena. "All your old journals, too. Hope that's okay."

Lena waved her hand like that didn't matter. "And you can still look me in the eye?" she asked.

Kara took a deep breath, rolling back to look at the ceiling. "Healing comes in fits and starts, and progress is not linear. You were good without trying, and even when you went off the rails, there were so many lines you wouldn't cross, and you never tried to hurt the world. I have every faith if being good again is what you want, you're already halfway there." she said. "But what made you so warm again?"

"You said that was what you missed most," Lena murmured, reaching over to brush a strand of hair from Kara's face. "You've always had a soft spot for confused villains. But you were most mad at your friend who let you go. I'm trying to fix that."

"You're not a villain," Kara told her softly.

"No," Lena agreed. "But we can't pretend that I wasn't at one point not so long ago."

Kara bit her lip. Then she reached over and took Lena's hand. And it felt like a baby phoenix might just be reborn from these horrible ashes.

"So, this is it," Lena said, standing before her spaceship.

"The Legion's programmed in the coordinates for the wormhole?" Kara asked.

Lena smiled. "Yes."

"And double checked the safety controls so even if it goes wrong you'll be alright?"

Lena's smile got a little bit bigger. "Yes."

"And you have survival equipment for outer space in there if you land on another planet?"

"Yes, mom."

Kara blushed under Lena's eyebrow raise. "Hey, space travel is dangerous for humans! And you're going alone!"

"What, you want to come with me?" Kara closed her mouth at the suggestion, and Lena's smile slipped off her face, replaced with something more considerate. "Thank you for checking on me," she said in a softer voice. "It means a lot."

Kara kicked at the ground idly. "Yeah, well," she lifted her head, tossing her hair back, "I don't want all those therapists' hard work to go to waste. And we might need that brain of your someday." Lena had a slightly fond look in her eyes, but it was slightly disappointed too. _Say it, coward. It's okay._ Kara took a deep breath, eyeing the sky. "And, uh, I might be kind of upset if you died in deep space."

Kara chanced a glance back at Lena, who was doing a very bad job of suppressing a smile, looking so much like the Lena in the beginning of their friendship who was afraid to laugh at her when she was being funny. Kara gave her a small grin, and Lena smiled for real. Kara felt a little piece click in her heart. Something like forgiveness. Something like hope. Something like faith, that she'd see her friend once more.

"Okay, so in the 31st century," Kara said, her voice business again, and Lena focused with her. "Don't talk to any strangers."

"They're _all_ going to be strangers, I think," Lena said, her mouth twisting with amusement.

"Don’t talk to any strangers who don't have superpowers."

Lena laughed, and Kara smiled again. It felt like old times again, and she thought of the fictional tv show being made of her again, but this time it didn't hurt. _The show focuses on their golden years before the fallout of Lena going off the rails for a short while, before the reconciliation, before Luthor comes back from the 31st century and reshapes technology as we know it for the better._ Yeah, Kara thought, watching Lena tap the spaceship so the doors opened, she still believed in Lena.

Lena's lips twisted like she wanted to say one last thing, but just then, Alura arrived, smiling as she handed Lena a care package for the journey--just her clothes she arrived in and the Argo version of a couple cookies--put them in the spaceship with her, and hugged Lena. "It was so good to have you here, and not just for the Harun-El. Have a safe trip, my dear."

"Thank you for everything," Lena murmured.

"You're welcome back anytime," Alura promised, and released her. Lena moved automatically to hug Kara, and before Kara quite knew it, she was hugging Lena for the first time in over a year.

Lena was just as warm and strong as she remembered, perhaps more so without the help of a yellow sun. Kara's arms half-heartedly returned her hug automatically before something else whispered in her head, _if she dies in space, at least give the woman a hug._ She'd been trying so hard. Kara deliberately wrapped her arms more fully around Lena, _meaning_ the hug.

Lena stepped back quickly, shoving her hands into her pockets. "Uh, sor--." she stopped herself. "Thanks."

Kara nodded wordlessly, not sure what to say.

Lena stepped into the spaceship then looked back to offer her one last smile. "I'll see you someday," she said, and Kara smiled back, this one a little sad to match Lena's.

"I'll see you someday, Lena."

And she was gone.

"You care for her," Alura observed, and Kara briefly wondered what would happen if she punched her mother. She could hear the voice in her head that sounded most like Alex screaming _DO IT._ She shrugged.

"I used to, certainly."

"No, I mean, you still do. You care anew."

"What do you mean by care?"

Alura smiled. "You chased her five lightyears to Argo, Kara. You make the decision to care for her anew every moment when you see how much better she is." Ok, so maybe _not_ punching her mother this one time was a good choice. That was a pretty good way of putting it.

And maybe, just maybe, Kara should start talking with her mother the same way she was talking with Lena.

Kara had no idea how the mail system works, or how on earth they're still using paper and pens in the 31st century, but the first letter arrived via Brainy three weeks after she gets back from Argo. Time seemed to pass in a parallel there.

Lena's prep-for-meetings handwriting, which Kara has come to associate with her most honest handwriting, filled two full pages, detailing adventures and introducing the characters of the Legion. There was very little self-hatred and a small amount of the carefulness she displayed on Argo, though there's a slight emphasis on atonement and how the Legionnaires are helping her with that. Kara read it and she felt clean, for the first time in a long time. She wrote back talking about her latest interview with Sam, who'd taken over L-Corp, Alex and Kelly's daughter learning how to say new words, and the villain of the week. It felt like a penpal. It felt like getting to know a new old friend again. It felt honest.

Brainy had another new letter for her in a week; she wrote back a few days later. Tuesdays became punctuated by her receiving of Lena's letters, reading them on her lunch break in the stair well and smiling so quietly to herself, Fridays by the sending of hers at the end of the work day. Brainy told her how Lena wa doing according to the other Legionnaires, nearly all progress reports encouraging, and in such a manner, time went on.

-Eighteen Months Later-

It had been seventy-eight letters on yellow lined pages torn from notepads, slanting through the back of printer sheets, ink splashing when she went through that fountain pen phase, graphite smudging when Nia found an old hoard of cheap pencils, all seventy-eight letters sent to Lena in the 31st century. She had been hologram-style communicating with Winn every other week since not long after he left and she saw Lena on those regular chats on two separate occasions.

Winn said she was doing well. Winn, who knew better than anyone what madness looked like and what it didn't and assured Kara that Lena didn't have it any more. "She has the capacity for it, sure," Winn said, looking earnest but unconcerned. "But she's honest to god seen the horrors and wants nothing to do with them. Remember when my dad escaped prison and how afraid I was of what was inside me because of that? That's her now."

And now that Lena was coming back. She was going to work in the labs of L-Corp, all her shares given up long ago when she was arrested, and though Sam would pay her what all the engineers were paid, her swanky apartment was long since gone and she'd be finding a new place to live on a normal person's salary, all her financial assets given up with her job. She'd occasionally consult for Sam and, with her intellect and experience, undoubtedly be running the lab herself in no time, but for now, she was going to be an engineer with no connections and no responsibilities on her shoulders. No power.

Lena was excited.

 _I don't know,_ her latest letter had read. _Maybe I should never have been given responsibility or power like that in the first place. Sure, I was plenty good at it, and I operate very well under pressure, but did I really want that? It was given to me, and I did have to fight for it, but there was always an expectation that I'd spend my whole life in charge. And I'm not so sure I want that. I certainly don't for now._

Kara had met with the engineers who were going to be in Lena's lab, working with her. Sam had privately asked her opinion, wanting to set Lena up for success, the same way she took care of all her engineers. They were all older, all kind, all people who had benefitted immensely under Lena's leadership and who at the same time all minded their own business. She'd likely fit in well with the easygoing group, even if she was a little more driven.

"When I visited her in that desert facility," Sam said, leaning back in her office chair that used to be Lena's, "She insisted I talk to Andrea. Buy CatCo back, if that's what it took. Get you all out of those three-year contracts or get James back in charge or whatever it took to make sure you all were honest journalists again." Kara thought back to Andrea's change of pace before she had left CatCo. They still didn't have James back, but the new Editor-in-Chief was doing well. CatCo was what it used to be.

After her time as Press Secretary was done, Cat had been hoping to come back to groom a new one herself, but the next President had asked her to keep going. Cat had rolled her eyes but stayed in the White House. Only because Carter's prestigious STEM school was in DC, she assured Kara privately.

"She wasn't positive why she was asking, either," Sam said thoughtfully. "But someone had made quite the impression on her that she had been a wrecking ball for a little while even before she attempted world domination. She wanted to make it right. Or at least leave no lasting scars."

"I didn't realize she was trying that early," Kara murmured, and Sam studied her closely.

"It was you who said that, wasn't it?"

Kara blushed. "Maybe."

Sam smiled, standing up to give her a hug. "Thanks for being honest with her. I know it can't have been easy to lose her like that, but I'm happy she's coming back. I missed my friend."

"Just like that?" Kara asked. "No feelings you need to work out in therapy, nothing?"

Sam shrugged. "She's always been someone who goes overboard. She locked me in a basement one time, remember? But she did it for me. She's finally realized that though her intentions are good, she needs to check with others on her methods. I'll closely supervise her methods, and that's that." Sam gave Kara a lopsided smile. "I nearly killed you once, remember? Tried a few more times after that, too. With full intent to murder. But we're here now."

"Some days I forget," Kara admitted. "Still, I'm glad you know now it was me."

Sam smiled sadly. "And I'm still sorry. But your whole thing is hope, help, and compassion for all, right?" Kara nodded. "Then I'm glad that you mean _all_ when you say _for all._ We need that around here, Supergirl. Even the former villains. Your capacity to let others grow and move on is my favorite thing about you. And your strength in that conviction in the face of anything is what I admire most."

It had been a lot harder to forgive Lena than it had the other villains in her life that were reformed. Maybe because betrayal hurts a lot worse than anything else. She understood Lena, in that way.

Healing comes in fits and starts.

Lena arrived back in the same spaceship she left in, with some fanfare.

News reporters had gotten wind that Lena Luthor was coming back to Earth and came to the Air Force base she landed at. The base was really a DEO facility disguised underneath the fake base, but Alex wasn't pleased with reporters sniffing around nonetheless. Two dozen odd reporters circled around the spaceship, and Kara thought distantly that it was odd that the reporters were here not for the spaceship, but for the person on it.

Anticipation coiled in her gut.

There was a few minutes as Lena shut the spaceship down, engines no longer glowing blue and ethereal hum fading away. Kara watched carefully, notebook clutched tight as her cover as she lingered in the back of the crowd. Lena stepped off the ship, and Kara caught her breath.

Lena was tanner than she used to be, hair slightly shorter, waist almost imperceptibly leaner and shoulders thicker. She carried herself with a quieter kind of confidence, less about showmanship and careful power and more about calmness and steadiness. Already this Lena looked more in control of herself and less in control of others.

Kara was proud of her.

Lena's shoulders were already squared as she walked towards the assembled reporters, the smallest of sad smiles gracing her lips, and let herself be bombarded with questions.

"Ms. Luthor! Ms. Luthor! What are your plans upon returning to Earth?"

"Anything to say to Supergirl and the rest of the world?"

"How'd you get out of prison so quickly and what were you doing in your time off-world?"

"Any more global domination in the works?"

Lena held up her hand, eyes scanning the small crowd, and paused for just a moment as she saw Kara. Her face relaxed. The reporters fell quiet, recorders outstretched, cameras snapping and filming. "Hello, everyone. My plans upon returning to earth are to go to work for L-Corp in the labs, working on carefully supervised projects under an expert team of veterans who will help me continue to stay on the right track. My time off-world was arranged because of the services I could render to those in need, and it was spent helping a group of highly qualified individuals keep other people safe, as a form of community service." She smiled gently. "I assure you I was not compensated in any way for my services."

There was a general chuckle, and Kara breathed. Lena could still charm some reporters when she wanted to. "No more global domination is in the works, now or ever, I promise you that," Lena continued, "And I'd like to take this opportunity now to tell the people of Earth how sorry I am. I had seen the travesties of the world and was convinced that if I could make the people of Earth bow to my will, I could ensure that no one ever did each other any harm. In my quest to not let anyone hurt anyone else anymore, I hurt far more people than ever should have been, and I also went about it the wrong way. I won't be telling anyone else how to live their lives, or forcing my will upon anyone, ever again. I know it can never make up for what I did, but I'd like to assure everyone it won't ever happen again. I'd like to build up trust with the community once more, if I can."

"How are you atoning for what you did?" A reporter asked, and Lena gave him a sad, lopsided smile.

"By trusting others when they tell me what's a good idea and what's not. By letting people tell me how to atone and make it up to them. I'll spend a lifetime fixing it, but I'm committed to not leaving this Earth or any of its inhabitants with scars on my account. And on that note," Lena squared her shoulders, looked directly into one of the cameras, "I know L-Corp has already covered all medical expenses of those who suffered in any way during my going off the rails. But I want everyone to hear me when I say that if there's anything I can do to make up for what I've done, let me know. Inquiries can be addressed to L-Corp. They'll find their way to me."

There was an instant clatter, reporters scrambling to ask more questions, but Lena just smiled and turned, walking away. She glanced back once, her eyes seeking Kara, who nodded minutely. Lena bobbed her head once in return and kept walking, towards the 'Air Force base' and the DEO.

Kara had to go back to work before she could see Lena for real. Brainy debriefed Lena on the future and what she was and wasn't allowed to share with even those who knew where she had really been. Sam had already texted that they'd received dozens of calls and emails about Lena's statement of wanting to atone, about six of them probably real people and the rest people who'd love to murder her. There was a long road ahead to winning back the public, but that was okay. Kara knew Lena wouldn’t have it any other way. Alex was already thinking of having Lena consult on a few DEO cases with her Legionnaire experience and general expertise, and Nia was blowing up her phone asking when she could see Lena for dinner. Kara texted Alex as she got out of work. _Lena still there?_

 _Yeah,_ Alex sent back. _Leaving in five. Want to pick her up?_

_I'm on my way._

Kara was waiting with bags in her hand when Lena exited the DEO through a discreet side door.

Lena's eyes landed on Kara and her face lit up.

"I wasn't expecting you here," she said, walking towards Kara, her carefulness from Argo all but gone washed away in seventy-eight letters written and received, and her ease eased something in Kara. She stopped three feet away, clearly wanting to be closer but refusing to crowd Kara for the moment.

"I wanted to see you," Kara said, scuffing her feet on the ground. "There are things I didn't want to say in a letter."

Lena's face was soft as she tilted her head, that warmth from so long ago Kara still missed coming back in one heady wave, and it felt _good_ in the warm desert evening. "Things like what?"

Kara took a deep breath, looking up and meeting her eyes. "Things like I forgive you. Things like you can stop trying so hard with me. Things like I still believe in your goodness and I want to be friends again and I miss you and I'm happy you're back."

A tear traced its way down Lena's cheek, just the one. "You're sure? You're serious?"

Kara smiled, and it this moment felt like coming home. "I'm sure. And I'm serious."

Lena hiccupped, looking down and wiping her eyes for a moment. "Then thank you. I'd like to be friends again too." She tilted her head. "I missed you too."

Kara held up the bags in her hand. "Still got greasy Chinese in the future?"

Lena smiled. "Not like this they don't."

"Shame," Kara said, and Lena laughed, too loud for a joke that nonchalant but real nonetheless. She opened her arms. "Can I give you a ride back to my place?"

Lena didn't hesitate, wrapping her arms around Kara's shoulders and hanging on tight, relaxing as Kara's arms wrapped around her in return, and Kara took off.

**Author's Note:**

> *contemplates a chapter two because I have still more ideas*


End file.
